Evaluating the Quality of Self-Reports of Hypertension and Diabetes

Noreen Goldman, I-fen Lin, Maxine Weinstein and Yu-Hsuan Lin
Additional contact information
Noreen Goldman: Princeton University
I-fen Lin: Bowling Green State University
Maxine Weinstein: Georgetown University
Yu-Hsuan Lin: Survey Research Center for Population and Health, Bureau of Health Promotion, Department of Health, Taiwan, ROC

No 306, Working Papers from Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Office of Population Research.

Abstract: Researchers and health specialists are increasingly obtaining information on chronic illnesses from self-reports. This study validates self-reports of two major health conditions, hypertension and diabetes, based on a recently fielded survey in Taiwan (SEBAS, 2000). The survey includes both self-reported health information and a physical examination for a large, nationally representative sample of respondents aged 54 and older. Average blood pressure readings, laboratory measures of glycosylated hemoglobin and information on whether the respondent was taking medication for hypertension or diabetes are used to validate respondents' reports of high blood pressure and diabetes. The resulting comparisons reveal that self-reports vastly underestimate the prevalence of hypertension (by almost 50 percent), but yield a reasonably accurate estimate of the prevalence of diabetes (a sensitivity of 83 percent). Significant correlates of the accuracy of the self-reports include age, education, time of the most recent health exam, and cognitive function.

Keywords: diabetes; hypertension; self-reports; validity, accuracy; Taiwan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002-03
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://web.archive.org/web/20150906201217/http:// ... u/papers/opr0203.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pri:opopre:opr0203.pdf

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Office of Population Research. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Bobray Bordelon ().